Hello all. This is my first ever blog post here in this new WordPress domain where I have transferred my blogspot blog to. And frankly speaking, I feel lost. I feel that I am now swimming in the core of a potpourri of emotions. One, of glum for bidding farewell to my writing accomplice of 7 years -Blogger and second, for the excitement that comes with the start of a new journey. Well, truly, the journey is almost the same- writing,reading blogs and replying to comments. But then, it seems refreshing to strike acquaintance with a fresh, more subtle platform like WordPress. I still have a lot to do to bring back the nuances of my previous blog, but I think I should deal with one step at a time.

Introspecting, I arrived at a conclusion that I write more when I am overpowered by the swell of my mind- be it a misery, or when I am at crossroads or when I am unusually jubilant for a reason. Blogging regularly, like churning out a blog a week or even at an interval of two weeks, even after all these years, has not become a goal that could be easily conquered. I dedicate a major part of the many reasons for that downside to my hectic course and duties that followed the same and the other part to my laziness. I don’t usually blog to ‘blog’, rather I blog because it is a convenient source to vent my angst. You might ask, why I would want to do that on a public platform when I can easily do that on a diary, letting out raw emotions unfiltered. Whether it be scribbling discreetly in a diary or it be typing explicitly on to the blank screen, both amount basically to writing, one may wonder. Well, the truth is that I, like any other writer, want to be read. Now that brings the discussion to a complete circle, isn’t it? I want to write, but at the same time, I want to be read as well. This post, to be frank, has transformed itself to a confession of sorts; a confession which should consolidate my decision to blog regularly, as I see that it is an inevitable deed if I want to call myself a blogger. I can always write outside of this space, but if I intend to let this space flourish, I need to come out her often and mark my presence. I know that the process is a satiating experience and I have had my own share of liebster awards, contest wins, posts with endless comments and a stats exceeding one lakh hits on blogger. Fortunate enough, right now, I am at a place in my personal life where I am sailing at a steady pace, for the time being, maybe for a few months even. That gives me less excuse to be a redundant blogger, and at the same time, more reasons to be a vivacious and a really creative one at that forte. And I sincerely hope for that to happen.

As this is almost sort of my first leap in to the realm of WordPress and supposedly into the arena of regular blogging, I would like to flag the journey off with a story. Now, who wouldn’t like to read a story? Hopefully, not you my reader(smiles).

MONOCHROME – (Fiction)

Little Ananya sat huddled in a dark corner of her room, well away from the door. Her palms were pressed tightly against her ears; her face flushed to a bright red shade; her cheeks smeared with wetness; her charcoal black eyes cringed tight, only to open to a narrow slit for tears to extrude whenever the cacophony erupting outside pierced her to leave behind an excruciating pain.

Looking around, she wimpered as her room silently started drowning in a sea of darkness. The sun had sunk beyond the horizon, nevetheless with a display of thoughtfulness to leave behind smatterings of saffron paint amidst the lakes of silent clouds. The night was slowly creeping in, with shadows of fear retreating to their favourite haven -the mind in tumult of a desperate soul.

The raised voice of her parents in the living room sent shivers through her shrivelled self. She couldn’t understand why she felt like she was on her first day at school yet again, as she tried hard to decipher the words her parents were hurling fiercely at each other. They were fighting, that much she could make out, for the tone of their voice was revolting.

Ananya reached for her teddy bear and drew it close to her, as she sat mulling over why her parents were angry. Haven’t they been so for the past one month, with no sign of reconciliation? she wondered. Her mommy had started the fight, Ananya recalled and it had something to do with the fact that her daddy was returning home late those days. She had watched them, everyday without fail, till the last week, keeping the door slightly ajar so that they would have no inkling as to her prying on them. The habit had come to a halt one day last week when her mother, having noticed her peeping on them barged into her room shouting harsh words at her, words she barely recognised as something similar to those used by Tara’s mommy.

“Tara is my best friend, Pinku. And her mommy takes bitter candies whenever she feels sad. You know, Tara has got another mommy too. Her daddy lives with her other mommy”

“They used to take me for picnic to all those beautiful places near the lake, Pinku. We used to sleep hugging each other in those small tents my daddy put up and my mommy used to cook delicious food for us, especially my favourite salad. . .” Her words broke in between, as she reminisced the pleasant times when they used to sit relaxed on the lush greenery lining the lake and savour food, only to be interrupted by frequent outburst of giggles and guffaws.

*******

Ananya listened hard. Her daddy’s voice could be heard outside. Was he crying?! She felt her heart flutter as the vision of her daddy in pain flashed across her mind. Fresh streams of tear rolled down her cheeks. She pressed the back of her hand against her lips so as to muffle her wails.

She sharpened her ears to hear what her father was explaining to her mother. Apprehensive as she was, Ananya couldn’t wait any longer. She slowly stood up and started walking towards the door, tip toed, her teddy bear still clutched strongly in her arms.

The house suddenly fell silent and quite eeringly so. Ananya waited with bated breath behind the door, lacking the courage to peek outside. She might have waited for a few minutes like that when her mother called out to her from the living room.

“Anu!”

Ananya gasped at her mother’s call. She scampered back to her bed, before her mother caught her lending ear to their conversation.

“Anu, bring your homework here!”

********

Ananya walked up to her mother who sat, fiddling with her finger nails, chewing them in between. She was annoyed beyond limits, Ananya could see.

Ananya stood near her mother, her head hung low, her lips pursed, her heart pounding loud as her mother quickly ran her eyes through her mathematics home work.

She stole a glance at her mother to guage her reaction. As Ananya watched, streaks of anger began to shadow on her mother’s otherwise angelic face, at the zenith of which she blurted out.

“Do you ever listen to your teacher in class, Ananya? What have you done here?! Twelve by twelve and what do you get? 164? Come on tell me now, what is the answer? Is it 164? Tell me!”

“What were you doing in there? Don’t you have every thing you need right inside your room? Why don’t you sit and learn what is being taught in your class, Ananya?!”

Ananya took a few steps back as her mother, irked to the core, sprang up from her seat. She watched, unblinking, as her mother threw her notebook aside on the floor and walked, huffing, to her bedroom, shutting the door behind with a loud thud.

Ananya stood shattered. She felt guilty for having let her mother down – She, of all people! Suddenly, a weird sense of desperation overtook her and she felt all alone standing there in her own home, which had been, till few days back, a treasure trove of happiness. Her eyes roved in search of her daddy. He was nowhere to be seen.

“Where did he go?” A melange of emotions overpowered her as she found no sign of her father anywhere in the house.

She picked up her notebook from the floor and retraced her steps. Climbing on her bed, she wiped away the damp stains of sorrow from her face and mumbled, “Pinku, mommy is really angry tonight. She just had a fight with daddy. I can’t find him anywhere inside. Maybe he went outside to buy chocolates for mommy. Mommy likes chocolates. She is going to be happy after that. You don’t be sad ok, Pinku. Were you scared when mommy shouted at me? I was, Pinku. A little bit. But that is ok. Mommy is going to be happy as soon as daddy brings her chocolates. You sleep now. She will wake us both up soon to share the chocolate with us, I am sure”

Wistfully, she kissed her teddy bear goodnight and shut her tired eyes. The moon lent her a milky white blanket as she lay on her bed, cocooned by a halo of hope that would guard her wounded soul from dreams echoing wretchedness.

***

The End

P.S: Thank you for stopping by on this good day. I would love to hear from you. And do keep coming back.

P.P.S : This post has been selected by Blogadda as a Tangy Tuesday Post! This post is also tagged with ‘Saturdays Specifics’, a sub section of this blog where I put up something creative- a story, poem, haiku, Flash Fiction or a Book Review.

~Maliny

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I sat huddling on my chair, slowly sifting through the delicate white leaves of Ruchita’s diary, the only faint sound echoing through the room being the alerting beep of the monitors perched on bedside tables. The elegant cursive letters, with a characteristic oval notation instead of the dots for the i’s, written in jet black ink, allured me more into the mystic tale each passing second. Ruchita was a writer and the prowess of her talent was evident from the tangled manner in which she moulded her sentences, even though the lines spoke of her life story and not of a tale churned out by her creative mind.

For the past one hour I had been drifting on a completely different world, traversing through the intriguing life events of Ruchita and Abhay, narrated through Ruchita’s beautiful words on her diary. She was amusingly garrulous at times and at other times, embarrassingly romantic. Ruchita and Abhay had been married for two months now. However, the journey that concluded on an exhilarating note in them getting married, hadn’t been a smooth joy ride all through. Tumultuous it was when Abhay refused to marry her on grounds of his parent’s disapproval; harrowing it was when Ruchita spent days encaged in her room cursing her unhappy life in between suppressed sobs and liberating wails; miracle it was when Abhay finally returned back to his only love defying his parent’s obstinate demands, to seek refuge in a completely alien city where he and Ruchita could carve a niche out for themselves, without being deterred by both their families.

The final account on the diary, the one that was written by an exuberant Ruchita madly in love with her husband Abhay, ended on 20th November, 2010. Today was the 30th of November, same year and the time was 8p.m.

At the far end of the brightly lit room, i could see the duty nurse, hustling through her duty report which was to be handed over to the person handling the night shift, with the fervour of a school kid ready to prance out at the first toll of the school bell.

Placing the light brown shaded diary softly on the side table, I grabbed the B.P measuring apparatus from its usual position near the head end of the patient. My movement, though mild it was, might have irked her, for Ruchita peeked at me through the narrow slits of her eyes. A smile broke out on her weary face on seeing me, but her eyes eluded me for i could hardly make out her gaze through the multiple cotton bandages fastened around her head and face, drenched in a repulsive shade of pale red. Even as the numbing cold waves from the air conditioner lashed at me, not sparing my overcoat clad body or my glove adorned hands, i could see tiny pearl sweat beads glistening on her bruised forehead.

Her speech which was almost lost the day she and Abhay were rushed to the casualty from the site of their accident on the wee hours of the morning nine days back, was gradually recovering, though she preferred to remain silent most of the times, lest it should cause her to wince out in pain on each movement of her lips.

“ Did you read it?” Ruchita asked me with much difficulty, her speech slurring, while I wrapped the cuff onto her arm.

I replied in affirmative as she continued in broken sentences.

“I never thought that his parents would make it here despite their enmity. How is Abhay today, doctor?”

“He is keeping alive, Ruchita. His parents are with him. And your mother will be here tomorrow morning too. Now i need you to get back to your sleep. You shouldn’t be stressing yourself much “, saying that i gestured the duty nurse to administer her the night dose of sedative. She curved her quivering lips while the medicine seeped into her slowly. Before long, surrendering to the drug, Ruchita was sliding back once again to her relaxed sleep, her chest heaving up and down heavily as she sucked in life air with utmost direness.

An uncomfortable dark cloud started looming in the back of my mind, as I watched her serene face glowing in the ever luminescent I.C.U room. I saw her smiling in her sleep, a smile that only a woman in love would be blessed with, even amidst the most trying of circumstances.

No tear clustered in my eyes looking at her heavily tattered body. My eyes had been trained to remain alert, sharp and dry twenty four hours a day, while I was on duty. But i could sense my heart weeping silently for the shriveled fate of this dainty young girl. A part of my disheveled mind cursed fate, not for her debacle, but for the strong effervescing emotions that she nurtured towards Abhay even while she was clutching onto medicines, barely conscious, for her revival.An inexplicable overplay of peace danced on her face, on the sight of which I felt my conscience weighing down heavily, as the thought of the blatant lie that i had helplessly uttered a few minutes back as the answer to her concerned query gnawed at me, leaving behind a searing pain.